Thursday, February 28, 2013

Bulgaria to hold early elections on May 12

(AP) ? Bulgaria will hold early parliamentary elections on May 12, following weeks of massive social protests that forced the government to resign triggering a political crisis in the poorest EU member country.

President Rosen Plevneliev said on Thursday that no party was willing to form a cabinet within the current legislature, due to end in July, so he is moving the polling date forward by two months.

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov's center-right government resigned last week in the wake of nationwide protests, the biggest since the country's financial meltdown in 1997.

Despite Borisov's resignation, protests against high electricity prices and poverty have continued and already led to some concessions.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-28-Bulgaria-Elections/id-c5049105bacc430b8ecc8644a7c22fc1

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Japanese disaster films highlight victims' stories

TOKYO (AP) ? The unnerving clicks of dosimeters are constant as people wearing white protective gear quickly visit the radiated no-go zones of decayed farms and empty storefronts. Evacuees huddle on blankets on gymnasium floors, waiting futilely for word of compensation and relocation.

Such scenes fill the flurry of independent films inspired by Japan's March 2011 catastrophe that tell stories of regular people who became overnight victims ? stories the creators feel are being ignored by mainstream media and often silenced by the authorities.

Nearly two years after the quake and tsunami disaster, the films are an attempt by the creative minds of Japan's movie industry not only to confront the horrors of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, but also to empower and serve as a legacy for the victims by telling their stories for international audiences.

The impact these films have on the global and Japanese audiences could perhaps even help change Japan, the directors say.

What's striking is that many of the works convey a prevailing message: The political, scientific and regulatory establishment isn't telling the whole truth about the nuclear disaster. And much of the public had been in the past ignorant and uncaring about Fukushima.

And so the films were needed, the auteurs say. The people leading Japan were too evasive about the true consequences of the multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant ? minimizing people's suffering, playing down health risks and shrugging off accountability for past go-go pro-nuclear government policies.

"Japan's response is ambiguous and irresponsible. But, meanwhile, time is passing," said Atsushi Funahashi, director of "Nuclear Nation," which documents the story of the residents of Futaba, Fukushima, the town where the crippled nuclear plant is located.

The entire town became a no-go zone ? contaminated by radiation in the air, water and ground after the tsunami destroyed the plant's cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors. Decommissioning the reactors is expected to take decades.

Of all Fukushima communities forced to evacuate, Futaba chose the farthest spot from the nuclear plant ? an abandoned high school in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo. That choice Funahashi feels highlights a keen awareness of the dangers of radiation and distrust of officials as the town had been repeatedly told the plant was safe.

The outburst of post-disaster filmmaking includes Americans living in or visiting Japan, such as "Surviving Japan," by Christopher Noland, "Pray for Japan," by Stuart Levy, and "In the Grey Zone" and "A2" by Ian Thomas Ash.

"The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom," by Lucy Walker, a Briton, was nominated for the 2012 Academy Award for short documentaries.

Both Levy and Noland volunteered in the disaster areas. Ash's documentaries focus on the plight of the children who continue to live near the nuclear plant and the frightened mothers who suspect the medical authorities are lying about the safety of radiation.

"I believe it is time for Japanese citizens to not just rebuild but reinvent their country with new leadership," said Noland, who like many others worries about the children. "I want the people of Japan to know I stand with them."

Funahashi's "Nuclear Nation," shown at film festivals including Berlin, Seoul and Edinburgh, Scotland, intentionally played out its scenes in real time to communicate the helplessness of the days slipping away for displaced people. Camera close-ups show the cold lunches in boxes being handed out, day by day.

Funahashi is outraged that, so many months later, the Japanese government has yet to properly compensate the 160,000 people who had to leave their homes near Fukushima Dai-ichi. The government has set up tiny temporary housing and has doled out aid calculated to approximate the minimum wage.

In one moving scene in "Nuclear Nation," one of the displaced residents, Masayoshi Watanabe, lights up a cigarette in a car and talks directly into the camera, strangely more movie-like than any Hollywood actor.

"Our town is gone. It's just land," he says pensively.

The movie started with 1,400 people in the school building, but that has dwindled lately to about 100. Funahashi is determined to keep filming until the last person leaves.

"The evacuated people are being forgotten," said Funahashi. "And criminal responsibility is also being forgotten."

Reputed director Sion Sono has also written and directed the sarcastically titled "The Land of Hope," departing from his usual ruthlessly violent avant-garde for a soap-operatic account of an elderly couple who commit suicide after a nuclear catastrophe set in the fictitious future.

Sono's "Himizu," a haunting coming-of-age film set in a surreal Japan hopelessly covered with tsunami debris, is more typical Sono in its raw dark style, criticizing the adult world as irresponsibly cruel and abusive to this nation's younger generation that must cope with radiation.

Yojyu Matsubayashi took a more standard documentary approach for his "Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape," interviewing people who were displaced in the Fukushima town of Minami Soma.

He followed them into temporary shelters in cluttered gymnasiums and accompanied their harried visits to abandoned homes with the gentle patience of a videojournalist. Japanese mainstream media had abandoned the no-go zone, and he felt it was up to freelance reporters like him to tell the true story, especially for the helpless elderly.

"I've been making documentaries for some time, but when the nuclear accident happened, I felt I had to be there," he said. "Once I got there, I knew I had to be there for a long time and express the eternal from that one spot."

His main message?

He wouldn't have made a movie if it were all that simple, Matsubayashi said quietly.

"It was human arrogance that led to this disaster, this crisis," he said. "We thought we could control even nature. And that's why this happened. Our lives were dependent on electricity from Fukushima. We shouldn't be making excuses that we didn't know, that we didn't care. Maybe that's why I made this movie."

Others are finding their work is drawing more attention after Fukushima.

Hitomi Kamanaka, who has devoted her life to documenting radiation issues, such as the struggles over a Japanese nuclear reprocessing plant and sicknesses in Iraq suspected of being caused by uranium bullets, is in the spotlight like never before.

Her 2012 film "Living With Internal Exposure" compiled the views of four medical experts who studied radiation's effects in Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Iraq and Fukushima, warning about the health damage that radiation can cause.

Akiyoshi Imazeki began shooting "Kalina's Apple, Forest of Chernobyl" in 2003, a film about a girl who falls sick after eating the radiated apples grown on her grandmother's farm. It was a film he believed in, but he had never hoped for massive appeal.

His post-Fukushima 2011 re-edit ? with its juxtaposition of pastoral lakes and forests, so much like Fukushima landscapes, with the forlorn faces of children hospitalized for cancer ? is striking home with many Japanese.

The film was shot quietly like many Japanese classics, and the cast is entirely Belarusian and Russian. But the dozens of screenings in Fukushima are drawing positive reviews.

"They all cry," said Imazeki.

Imazeki is convinced the parallels between Fukushima and Chernobyl are striking, and stressed "Kalina's Apple, Forest of Chernobyl" dramatizes the tragedy of radiation.

"The invisibility adds to the turmoil," he said. "Families can no longer live normal happy lives."

___

Online:

"Nuclear Nation" official site: http://nuclearnation.jp/en/

"Surviving Japan" official site: http://survivingjapanmovie.com/

"Pray for Japan" official site: http://prayforjapan-film.org/

Ian Thomas Ash: http://www.documentingian.com/

"The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom" official site: http://thetsunamiandthecherryblossom.com/

"The Land of Hope" trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPv3BX39dPk

"Himizu" official site: http://thirdwindowfilms.com/films/himizu

"Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape" official site: http://www.somakanka.com/eng.html trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMeMk38tyrs

"Kalina's Apple, Forest of Chernobyl" http://kalina-movie.com/

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japanese-disaster-films-highlight-victims-stories-065002306.html

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

LG showcasing wireless Ultra HD transmission technology at Mobile World Congress

Android Central

Android Central at Mobile World Congress

Last month's CES over in Las Vegas had a whole lot of 4K Television news. After HD, comes Ultra HD, and with it some pretty amazing looking TV sets with an amazing price to match. If you were sat there wondering; "when will I be able to push my smartphone content to one of these," then wonder no longer. Over in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, LG is showcasing what they're saying is the world's first wireless Ultra HD transmission technology. 

It's pretty much as simple as it sounds. Wirelessly transmitting content from a smartphone, to a 4K TV in real time. Further more, LG claims the technology consumes less than half the power of some other wireless transmission technologies. You'll find the full release after the break. 

read more



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/ce03lwgA8-I/story01.htm

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After 7-week struggle, Hagel poised for defense job

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel.

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

Chuck Hagel?s seven-week struggle to win confirmation as secretary of defense appears near the end with an expected Senate vote Tuesday on his nomination.

President Barack Obama?s choice to run the Pentagon is expected to win confirmation since a few Republicans announced that they?ll join Senate Democrats in voting for him.

The vote would put an end to a rocky nomination process that came after Hagel?s GOP foes succeeded in delaying the confirmation.

Lead opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insinuated two weeks ago that Hagel might have given as-yet undisclosed speeches to ?extreme or radical groups? or received money from foreign sources or from defense contractors in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., rebuked the latter saying Hagel complied with the committee?s financial disclosure requirements and deserved confirmation.

Last week 15 GOP senators asked Obama to withdraw Hagel?s nomination, but it was clear that not enough Republican senators would vote to further delay Hagel?s confirmation by extended debate or filibuster.

The former Nebraska Republican senator turned against his party by campaigning for Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey in Nebraska last year.

He?d also harshly criticized President George W. Bush after the Iraq war became unpopular in 2006, suggesting at one point that Bush might be impeached. These remarks made him popular with Democrats but something of a pariah in his own party.

Recommended:?Obama tells govs to push Congress to avert automatic cuts

The antagonism of Cruz and several other Republican senators turned to disdain once Hagel testified before the Armed Services Committee last month. Hagel was forced to amend or retract comments he?d made about Iran, Israel and other matters.

NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro report Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel may finally get the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster and be confirmed next week.

At one point during his confirmation hearing, when discussing U.S. policy toward Iran?s efforts to build nuclear weapons, Hagel said, ?I?ve just been handed a note that I misspoke and said I supported the president?s position on ?containment.? If I said that, I meant to say that obviously ? his position on containment ? we don?t have a position on containment.?

Levin intervened: ?Just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment ? which is we do not favor containment.?

?It was the most unimpressive performance that I have seen in watching many nominees who came before the committee,? said Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Hagel opponent.

Related: What problems will Hagel inherit at Department of Defense?

But Democrats on the panel repeatedly praised Hagel for having served in combat in Vietnam.

From the beginning, Obama portrayed Hagel as a man who was ideally qualified to head the Defense Department because, as the president said when announcing the nomination, he ?knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that?s something we only do when it?s absolutely necessary.?

In presenting Hagel as his pick, Obama declared that ?Chuck represents the bipartisan tradition that we need more of in Washington.?

Obama said that he was courageous and independent in his views ?and that?s exactly the spirit I want on my national security team, a recognition that when it comes to the defense of our country, we are not Democrats or Republicans; we are Americans.?

But Republicans such as Cruz said Hagel was not up to the job of running the Pentagon. Cruz went so far as to argue that Hagel, if confirmed, would ?make military conflict in the next four years substantially more likely? because his views on negotiating with Tehran would encourage the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear weapons development program.

This story was originally published on

Source: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17089840-after-seven-week-struggle-hagel-poised-for-defense-confirmation?lite

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In Germany, Kerry defends Americans' 'right to be stupid'

BERLIN (Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry offered a defense of freedom of speech, religion and thought in the United States on Tuesday telling German students that in America "you have a right to be stupid if you want to be."

"As a country, as a society, we live and breathe the idea of religious freedom and religious tolerance, whatever the religion, and political freedom and political tolerance, whatever the point of view," Kerry told the students in Berlin, the second stop on his inaugural trip as secretary of state.

"People have sometimes wondered about why our Supreme Court allows one group or another to march in a parade even though it's the most provocative thing in the world and they carry signs that are an insult to one group or another," he added.

"The reason is, that's freedom, freedom of speech. In America you have a right to be stupid - if you want to be," he said, prompting laughter. "And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be.

"And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that. Now, I think that's a virtue. I think that's something worth fighting for," he added. "The important thing is to have the tolerance to say, you know, you can have a different point of view."

Kerry made the comments on his first foreign trip since becoming secretary of state on February 1. After one-night stops in London and Berlin, he visits Paris, Rome, Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha before returning to Washington on March 6.

While speaking to the students and earlier to U.S. diplomats, Kerry reminisced about the time he spent in Berlin in the 1950s as the intrepid son of an American diplomat and retold a story of sneaking across to East Berlin with his bike.

"I used to have great adventures. My bicycle and I were best friends. And I biked all around this city. I remember biking down Kurfuerstendamm and seeing nothing but rubble. This was in 1954 ... the war was very much still on people's minds," he told the diplomats, referring to West Berlin's main shopping avenue.

"One day, using my diplomatic passport, I biked through the checkpoint right into the east sector and noticed very quickly how dark and unpopulated (it was) and sort of unhappy people looked," he added, saying it left an impression "that hit this 12-year-old kid."

"I kind of felt a foreboding about it and I didn't spend much time. I kind of skedaddled and got back out of there and went home and proudly announced to my parents what I had done and was promptly grounded and had my passport pulled," he added.

"As a 12-year-old, I saw the difference between East and West," he later told the students. "I never made another trip like that. But I have never forgotten it. And now, it's vanished, vanished."

(This story is refiled to correct typo in paragraph 4)

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-defends-liberties-says-americans-stupid-141450112.html

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Ikea's Swedish meatballs latest victim of horsemeat scandal

STOCKHOLM (AP) ? Swedish furniture giant Ikea was drawn into Europe's widening food labeling scandal Monday as authorities said they had detected horse meat in frozen meatballs labeled as beef and pork and sold in 13 countries across the continent.

The Czech State Veterinary Administration said that horse meat was found in one-kilogram (2.2 pound) packs of frozen meatballs made in Sweden and shipped to the Czech Republic for sale in Ikea stores there. A total of 760 kilograms (1,675 pounds) of the meatballs were stopped from reaching the shelves.

Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said meatballs from the same batch had gone out to Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland. Magnusson said meatballs from that batch were taken off the shelves in Ikea stores in all those countries. Other shipments of meatballs were not affected, including to the U.S., even though they all come from the same Swedish supplier, Magnusson said.

"Our global recommendation is to not recall or stop selling meatballs," she said.

However, the company's Swedish branch announced on its Facebook page that it won't sell or serve any meatballs at its stores in Sweden out of concern for "potential worries among our customers."

Magnusson said Ikea saw no reason to extend that guidance globally. She said Ikea was conducting its own tests of the affected batch "to validate" the Czech results. She also said that two weeks ago Ikea tested a range of frozen food products, including meatballs, and found no traces of horse meat.

"But, of course, we take the tests that Czech authorities have done very seriously," Magnusson said. "We don't tolerate any other ingredients than those on the label."

European authorities have said the horse meat found in lasagna and other prepared dishes is a case of fraudulent labeling but does not pose a health risk.

Ikea's trademark blue-and-yellow stores typically feature a restaurant that serves traditional Swedish food, including meatballs served with boiled or mashed potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jam. Meatballs ? "Kottbullar" in Swedish ? are also available in the frozen foods section.

Magnusson said all of the meatballs are supplied by Gunnar Dafgard AB, a family-owned frozen foods company in southwestern Sweden. Calls to the company were not immediately returned, but it posted a brief statement on its website saying "the batch in question has been blocked and we are investigating the situation."

Sweden's food safety authority said it wasn't taking any action but was waiting for Czech authorities to specify the quantity of horsemeat detected.

"If it's less than 1 percent it could mean that they handled horsemeat at the same facility. If it's more, we assess that it's been mixed into the product," said Karin Cerenius of Sweden's National Food Agency.

European Union officials were meeting Monday to discuss tougher food labeling rules after the discovery of horse meat in a range of frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna that were supposed to contain beef or pork.

The Czech authority also announced Monday that it found horse meat in beef burgers imported from Poland during random tests of food products.

Spanish authorities, meanwhile, announced that traces of horse meat were found in a beef cannelloni product by one of the brands of Nestle, a Switzerland-based food giant.

In a statement on its website, Nestle Spain said that after carrying out tests on meat supplied to its factories in Spain it was withdrawing six "La Cocinera" products and one "Buitoni" product from store shelves.

It said it was taking the action after the traces of horse meat were found in beef bought from a supplier in central Spain. Nestle said it was taking legal action against the company, adding that the products would be replaced by ones with 100 percent beef.

Some EU member states are pressing for tougher labeling rules to regain consumer confidence.

The 27-nation bloc must agree on binding origin disclosures for food product ingredients, starting with a better labeling of meat products, German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said.

"Consumers have every right to the greatest-possible transparency," she insisted.

Austria backs the German initiative; but others like Ireland say existing rules are sufficient although Europe-wide controls must be strengthened to address the problem of fraudulent labeling.

The scandal has created a split between nations like Britain which see further rules as a protectionist hindrance of free trade under the bloc's single market, and those calling for tougher regulation.

Processed food products ? a business segment with traditionally low margins that often leads producers to hunt for the cheapest suppliers ? often contain ingredients from multiple suppliers in different countries, who themselves at times subcontract production to others, making it hard to monitor every link in the production chain.

Standardized DNA checks with meat suppliers and more stringent labeling rules will add costs that producers will most likely hand down to consumers, making food more expensive.

The scandal began in Ireland in mid-January when the country announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. It tested frozen beef burgers taken from store shelves and found that more than a third of brands at five supermarkets contained at least a trace of horse. The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse.

Such discoveries have spread like wildfire across Europe as governments, supermarkets, meat traders and processors began their own DNA testing of products labeled beef and have been forced to withdraw tens of millions of products from store shelves.

More than a dozen nations have detected horse flesh in processed products such as factory-made burger patties, lasagnas, meat pies and meat-filled pastas. The investigations have been complicated by elaborate supply chains involving multiple cross-border middlemen.

___

Associated Press writers Juergen Baetz in Brussels, Karel Janicek in Prague and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/horse-meat-found-ikeas-swedish-meatballs-112154426--finance.html

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Jerry Buss Had Been Battling Prostate Cancer | KTLA 5

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) ? New details have been released about the cause of death of legendary Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss.

jerry-bussAccording to his death certificate, Buss suffered from prostate cancer before ultimately succumbing to kidney failure.

In the 15 months leading up to his death, it was widely know that Buss was battling cancer, but the type was never specified.

Dr. Buss died on February 18 at the age of 80. He is survived by his six children.

Source: http://ktla.com/2013/02/26/jerry-buss-had-been-battling-prostate-cancer/

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New talks on Iran nuclear program offer slim hope

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, left, and Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev greet each other prior their talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Iran and six world powers, five permanent U.N. Security council members and Germany, are set to hold talks in Kazakhstan this week on Tehran's controversial nuclear program.(AP Photo/Pavel Mikheyev)

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, left, and Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev greet each other prior their talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Iran and six world powers, five permanent U.N. Security council members and Germany, are set to hold talks in Kazakhstan this week on Tehran's controversial nuclear program.(AP Photo/Pavel Mikheyev)

Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, left, shakes hands with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev prior their talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Iran and six world powers, five permanent U.N. Security council members and Germany, are set to hold talks in Kazakhstan this week on Tehran's controversial nuclear program.(AP Photo/Pavel Mikheyev)

(AP) ? World powers began a new round of high-level talks with Iranian officials Tuesday, trying to find a way out of a yearslong tussle over Tehran's nuclear program and its feared ability to make atomic weapons in the future.

Few believe the latest attempt to forge a compromise will yield any major breakthroughs, but negotiators are optimistically casting it as a stepping stone toward reaching a workable solution.

Officials described the latest diplomatic discussions as a way to build confidence with Iran as the country steadfastly maintains its right to enrich uranium in the face of harsh international sanctions.

"The offer addresses the international concern on the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program, but it is also responsive to Iranian ideas," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading the negotiations. "We've put some proposals forward which will hopefully allow Iran to show some flexibility."

Mehdi Mohammadi, a member of the Iranian delegation, said Tehran was prepared to make an offer of its own to end the deadlock but will resist some of the West's core demands.

The Obama administration is pushing for diplomacy to solve the impasse but has not ruled out the possibility of military intervention in Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Israel has threatened it will use all means to stop Iran from being able to build a bomb, potentially as soon as this summer, raising the specter of a possible Mideast war.

A senior U.S. official at the talks said Monday that some sanctions relief would be part of the offer to Iran but refused to elaborate. The new relief is part of a package that the U.S. official said included "substantive changes."

The official acknowledged reports earlier this month that sanctions would be eased to allow Iran's gold trade to progress, but would neither confirm nor deny they are included in the new relief offer, and spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic talks more candidly.

In a statement before the talks began Tuesday, the Interfax news agency cited Russia's envoy as saying the easing of sanctions was possible only if Iran can assure the world that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes.

"There is no certainty that the Iranian nuclear program lacks a military dimension, although there is also no evidence that there is a military dimension," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

China's Foreign Ministry said diplomacy offered the only route to resolve the dispute and called for all sides to show flexibility.

"We think the Iranian nuclear issue is very complicated and sensitive. All parties should have firm confidence in peacefully resolving the issue through dialogue and negotiation and take an objective and pragmatic attitude," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing in Beijing.

Members of the Chinese and Iranian delegations met at a bilateral session before the main talks got under way.

Interfax cited an unidentified Iranian delegation member as saying Iran might also hold one-on-one talks with Russia, but ruled out direct negotiations with the United States in Almaty.

Officials from both sides have set low expectations for a breakthrough in Almaty ? the first time the high-level negotiators have met since last June's meeting in Moscow that threatened to derail the delicate efforts.

While Mann acknowledged the Almaty talks would unlikely lead to a firm, he insisted that it remained an important stepping stone toward a definitive solution.

"We're not interested in talks just for talk's sake. We're not here to talk, we're here to make concrete progress," he said.

The first session talks are being held in private at a hotel in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, and were deemed so sensitive that reporters were not allowed on the premises Tuesday save for a small handful of TV cameras and photographers allowed to watch Ashton greet Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

The opening round Tuesday afternoon lasted 2 ? hours.

Tehran maintains it is enriching uranium only to make reactor fuel and medical isotopes, and insists it has a right to do so under international law. It has signaled it does not intend to stop, and U.N. nuclear inspectors last week confirmed Iran has begun a major upgrade of its program at the country's main uranium enrichment site.

Over the last eight months, the international community has imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran that U.S. officials said have, among other things, cut the nation's daily oil output by 1 million barrels and slashed its employment rate. Western powers have hoped that the Iranian public would suffer under sanctions so the government would feel a moral obligation to slow its nuclear program.

The six world powers ? United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany ?want Iran to suspend enrichment in its underground Fordo nuclear facility, and to ship its stockpile of high-grade uranium out of the country.

Mohammadi said that the shuttering of Fordo was "out of the question."

Negotiators hope that easing some of the sanctions will make Tehran more agreeable to halting production of 20 percent enriched uranium ? the highest grade of enrichment that Iran has acknowledged and one that experts say could be turned into warhead grade in a matter of months.

Mohammadi said Iran would only agree to that stipulation on the condition of UN Security Council sanctions being suspended.

But an analysis released Monday by the International Crisis Group concluded that the web of international sanctions have become so entrenched in Iran's political and economic systems that they cannot be easily lifted piece by piece. It found that Tehran's clerical regime has begun adapting its policy to the sanctions, despite their crippling effect on the Iranian public. Doing so, the analysis concluded, has divided the public's anger "between a regime viewed as incompetent and an outside world seen as uncaring."

Iran has been unimpressed with earlier offers by the powers to provide it with medical isotopes and lift sanctions on spare parts for civilian airliners, and new bargaining chips that Tehran sees as minor are likely to be snubbed as well. Iran insists, as a starting point, that world powers must recognize the republic's right to enrich uranium.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-26-Iran-Nuclear/id-5382e45b009c4c1293b98514ad780b70

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Monday, February 25, 2013

Clues to climate cycles dug from south pole snow pit

Feb. 25, 2013 ? Particles from the upper atmosphere trapped in a deep pile of Antarctic snow hold clear chemical traces of global meteorological events, a team from the University of California, San Diego and a colleague from France have found.

Anomalies in oxygen found in sulfate particles coincide with several episodes of the world-wide disruption of weather known as El Ni?o and can be distinguished from similar signals left by the eruption of huge volcanoes, the team reports in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the week of February 25.

"Our ability to link of reliable chemical signatures to well-known events will make it possible to reconstruct similar short-term fluctuations in atmospheric conditions from the paleohistory preserved in polar ice," said Mark Thiemens, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, who directed the research and dug up much of the snow.

Thiemens, graduate student Justin McCabe and colleague Joel Savarino of Laboratoire de Glaciologie et G?ophysique de l'Environnment in Grenoble, France, excavated a pit 6 meters deep in the snow near the South Pole, with shovels.

"At an elevation of 10,000 feet and 55 degrees below zero, this was quite a task," Thiemens said. Their efforts exposed a 22 year record of snowfall, a pileup of individual flakes, some of which crystallized around particles of sulfate that formed in the tropics.

Atmospheric sulfates form when sulfur dioxide -- one sulfur and two oxygen molecules -- mixes with air and gains two more oxygen molecules. This can happen a number of different ways, some of which favor the addition of variant forms of oxygen, or isotopes, with and extra neutron or two, previous work by Thiemens's group has shown.

Unlike polar ice, which compresses months of precipitation so tightly that resolution is measured in years, relatively fluffy snow allowed the team to resolve this record of atmospheric chemistry on a much finer scale.

"That was key," said Robina Shaheen, a project scientist in Thiemen's research group who led the chemical analysis. "This record was every six months. That high resolution made it clear we can trace a seasonal event such as ENSO."

ENSO, the El Ni?o Southern Oscillation, is a complex global phenomenon that begins when trade winds falter allowing piled up in the tropical western Pacific to slosh toward South America in a warm stream that alters marine life crashing fisheries off Peru and Chile, and disrupts patterns of rainfall leaving parts of the planet drenched and others parched.

The warmed air above the sea surface lifts sulfur dioxide high into the stratosphere, where it's oxidized by ozone, which imparts a distinctly different, anomalous pattern of oxygen variants to the resulting sulfate particles.

In the Antarctic snow samples, the chemists found traces of these oxygen anomalies in sulfates trapped within layers of snow that fell during strong El Ni?o seasons.

Volcanoes too can shoot sulfur compounds high into the atmosphere where they react with ozone to produce sulfates with oxygen anomalies. Three large volcanoes, El Chich?n, Pinatubo and Cerro Hudson, erupted over the course of this time sample, which stretched from 1980 to 2002 and encompassed three ENSO events as well.

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Journal Reference:

  1. S. Chakraborty, T. L. Jackson, M. Ahmed, M. H. Thiemens. Sulfur isotopic fractionation in vacuum UV photodissociation of hydrogen sulfide and its potential relevance to meteorite analysis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1213150110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/LfVdYx0ik8Q/130225153126.htm

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New ATO contracting reporting requirements ? FM Magazine

Businesses in the building and construction industry now have to report to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) the total amount they have paid contractors each year for building and construction services.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued a statement noting that from 1 July 2012 businesses in the building and construction industry will have to report to them the total amount they have paid contractors each year for building and construction services. The ATO states that it?will compare this information with the income contractors in the building and construction industry?have included in their tax returns.
The information to be reported each year by businesses that paid contractors?in the building and construction industry?will be:

  • the contractor?s Australian business number (ABN)
  • the contractor?s?name
  • the contractor?s?address, and
  • the total amount paid to the contractor,?including any GST.

The statement issued by the ATO urges contractors to make sure they:

  • lodge their 2012-13 tax return by the due date and include all their income
  • lodge any prior years? tax returns as soon as possible, and
  • consider making a voluntary disclosure if they think they have made a mistake in a previously lodged tax return (where they voluntarily advise the ATO of any errors or omissions, any penalties that apply may be reduced).

John Leonard, assistant commissioner of the ATO, states that these new reporting requirements have been introduced to create a level playing field for businesses and improve tax fairness within the industry. ?Contractors who fail to meet their tax obligations can gain an unfair competitive advantage,? Leonard states.??We will use the information reported to detect contractors who have not lodged tax returns or failed to include all their income in tax returns lodged.?

More Information:
Australian Taxation Office - ato.gov.au/taxablepaymentsreporting

Tagged Under: 2012, ABN, address, advantage, all, amount, assistant commissioner, ATO, australia, Australian, Australian business number, Australian Taxation Office, building, business, company, compare, competitive, competitive advantage, construction, contract, contract management, contracting, contractor, contractors, data, date, detect, due, error, facilities management, Facility Management, fairness, GST, include, including, income, Industry, information, introduce, introduced, issue, John Leonard, July, level, lodge, management, mistake, name, new, obligation, obligations, oblige, office, omission, organisation, paid, penalties, penalty, playing field, prior, property and real estate, property services, provider, report, reporting, requirements, return, service, service provider, services, statement, subcontractor, tax, tax return, taxation, total, unfair, voluntary disclosure, year

Source: http://www.fmmagazine.com.au/news/new-ato-contracting-reporting-requirements/

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Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2


The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 combines touch, all-day battery life, and ThinkPad styling to the Windows 8 Slate tablet market. It's not a bad first effort, but rivals currently have the upper hand. It can be your all-day companion running from meeting to meeting, and you can get work done with the help of accessories when you finally get back to your desk. Taken alone, it's a very good tablet. Unfortunately, other rivals have better battery life, connections to keyboards, and overall differentiating features.

Design and Features
The Tablet 2 looks professional, with a black PolyCarbonate/ABS plastic cover over a magnesium internal frame. The tablet measures about 7 by 10.5 by 0.34 inches (HWD) and weighs a scant 1.21 pounds alone. Add the optional Bluetooth keyboard ($120) and fitted sleeve ($40), and you're talking a 2.63-pound travel weight. One plus that the Tablet 2 has over its rivals is its built-in slot to carry its included stylus. The Wacom-style stylus has a right-click button, but lacks the eraser tip that rivals like the Dell Latitude 10 and Microsoft Surface Pro have. Weighing less than 1.25 pounds and with its built-in stylus holder, it is a very good handheld PC for running around the office park or for a full day of client meetings.

The Tablet 2 has a few ports and switches on its sides: a micro-USB port for charging, a low-power USB 2.0 port, MicroSD and a SIM slot under a shared door, headset jack, volume, power, rotate lock, a docking port, and a mini-HDMI out port. The SIM slot supplies authentication to an optional WWAN radio, which wasn't in our review unit. The docking connector is mainly for the $100 enterprise-level docking station, since the Bluetooth keyboard and stand lacks a docking port.

The Bluetooth keyboard is very comfortable and has a built-in optical TrackPoint and the usual ThinkPad mouse buttons. But there is no room for a palm rest, and the keyboard has no retention mechanism aside from gravity and friction from the slot carved in its surface. This means that the keyboard stand works fine on a tabletop, but if you use the combo on your lap, the Tablet 2 is likely to slide out if you shift your weight during you work session. Both the keyboard and Tablet 2 fit in a tailor-made fitted sleeve, so the combo can work part-time. The Bluetooth keyboard has its own battery for operation, but it doesn't supply auxiliary power like the keyboard docks for the HP Envy X2 or Acer Iconia W510-1422.

The Tablet 2 charges off of its micro-USB port, which is a plus for the road warrior. Most non-iPhone smartphones use micro-USB to charge, so you can get by only carrying a single charger. The Tablet 2 comes with a 2A USB adapter and a USB to micro USB cable, which you can use with your smartphone or tablet. This also makes it more convenient for the multi-device user, since he can charge the Tablet 2 off of a PC with the USB cable as well. Lenovo also sells a $20 USB vehicle charger so you can charge your tablet on the road.

The Tablet 2's regular USB 2.0 port is problematic. It is full-size, so it will work with all sorts of peripherals like printers, keyboards/mice, and USB memory keys. But the USB port only supplies a few watts of power, so it won't run a large-capacity external hard drive. This shortcoming is a large detriment to getting work done if all you have with you are bus-powered external hard drives. The Dell Latitude 10 and most ultrabook-class tablets have full-power USB ports. The Tablet 2 can connect to 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 is supported. GPS is included.

The Tablet 2's screen is a 10.1-inch IPS display with a 1,366-by-768 resolution. This means that you can playback 720p HD content natively, but 1080p content will be scaled down. The system's Wacom-style digitizer and stylus back up the five-point touch screen. When the tip of the stylus comes close to the screen, the capacitive touch sensors turn off, so you aren't making marks with your palm when you're actually drawing on the screen with the stylus. The screen is bright, with a wide angle of view from all sides, and an accelerometer makes sure that screen elements point up at all times.

The Tablet 2 comes with an Intel Atom Z2760 processor, 2GB of memory, and a 64GB of flash storage. When we first turned the Tablet 2 on, it came with 33.4 GB of 50GB free. This is a bit less than the "36.8 GB of 52.2GB free" reported by the Editors' Choice Dell Latitude 10. No doubt much of the used space is the recovery partition plus a selection of pre-installed apps. The Tablet 2 came with Lenovo Companion, Skitch Touch, Evernote Touch, Lenovo Support, a Lenovo Settings app, Accuweather, QuickSnip (a clipping/screenshot utility), Amazon Kindle, Skype, rara.com, Intel AppUp, Lenovo Cloud Storage (SugarSync), and Norton Studio (security). Lenovo also included their QuickLaunch app, which replaces the functions of the Windows 7 Start menu. It's not the most heinous use of space, but since Tablet 2's current options for storage are 64GB only, every bit of storage space is precious. You can of course add storage with the microSD slot. The Tablet 2's front webcam is 2MP and the rear is 8MP with a LED flash. The Tablet 2 has a one-year standard warranty.

Performance
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 The Intel Atom Z2760 processor in the Tablet 2 ensures Windows 8 32-bit compatibility, so the tablet will work with all your enterprise apps and corporate network protocols. It also means that you can use the browser and plug-ins standardized at your business instead of being limited to Internet Explorer (as you would be on a Windows RT system).

However, while the Atom means that the Tablet 2 has 10-hour battery life (10 hours 11 minutes), it also means that it doesn't perform too well on our multimedia benchmark tests. The Tablet 2 was one of the slowest systems we've ever tested on our Handbrake test (13:27 vs. 1:28 on a Core i5 system like the Microsoft Surface Pro). The Tablet 2 also lagged Atom-powered rivals like the Dell Latitude 10 and Acer W510 on the Handbrake test. On day-to-day tasks, the Tablet 2 put in a passable 1,410 point score on PCMark 7. Basically, if you have a need for corporate information retrieval and media playback all day, the Tablet 2 is fine, but if you need to work on graphics creation on a deadline, you're better off with a more powerful system with an Intel Core processor.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 is a decent Windows 8 Slate tablet. It doesn't win any of the performance tests, but is competitive with its Atom-powered rivals. It's a simple work-based tablet that has a good set of ThinkPad accessories that make it a good fit if you're transitioning ThinkPad users to something a lot more portable. However, for the ultimate in battery life, other systems like the Editors' Choice Dell Latitude 10 and keyboard docking tablets like the Acer Iconia Tab W510 are better choices if battery life is paramount. And let's face it, you're looking at an Atom-based tablet because of its combination of Windows 8 Pro compatibility and phenomenal battery life, right?

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 with several other laptops and tablets side by side.

More laptop reviews:
??? Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2
??? Dell XPS 10
??? Dell Latitude 10
??? MSI GT70 One-609US Dragon Edition
??? Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro
?? more

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Man sues parents for not loving him enough

NBC 4 New York

Bernard Bey, 32, of Brooklyn

By Checkey Beckford, NBCNewYork.com

A 32-year-old Brooklyn man is suing his parents, claiming he wasn't loved enough by them and that their neglect has caused him to be homeless and jobless.

Bernard Bey filed a self-written lawsuit in Brooklyn court earlier this month, accusing his parents of causing him mental anguish and for making him feel "unloved and beaten by the world."

"If you have kids, you're expected to love your children," Bey told NBC 4 New York. "You want the best for your children."

Bey claimed he was physically and emotionally abused and ran away from home when he was 12, and then was in and out of the shelter system after turning 16.

He's spent time in jail and is now homeless, and he believes his parents are at the root of his problems.

Bey is asking the court for more than $200,000 in damages. He wants his parents to mortgage their family home and purchase two franchises like Domino's Pizza.

"I feel like my parents should want the best for their children and grandchildren so we have something to pass down for generations so we don't have to live like this," he said.

Read more from NBCNewYork.com

Bey's parents, who live in public housing, said they're not in a position to give up any money. His stepfather named in the suit, Bernard Manley, had some choice unprintable words and maintained Bey is not his biological son.

Bey said he is willing to drop the lawsuit if his family will simply sit down at the dinner table with him.

"Let's work together, and definitely, I'll drop the suit," he said.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/23/17064503-man-sues-parents-for-not-loving-him-enough?lite

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Inhabitat's Week in Green: P1 hybrid supercar, asteroid attack lasers and mosquito inoculators

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

DNP Inhabitat's Week in Green tktktk

Coffee is what fuels us in the morning -- but it turns out that a cup of Joe can do much more than perk up sleepy office workers; this week a truck that runs entirely on coffee set a world record for the highest speed ever attained by a java-powered vehicle. That isn't the only green car news that broke this week -- with the Geneva Motor Show fast approaching, we've been keeping an ear to the ground for the latest from Switzerland. McLaren is set to officially unveil its 903-horsepower P1 hybrid supercar at the Geneva show, and Volkswagen will show off its new XL1 plug-in hybrid, which gets a whopping 261 miles to the gallon. Volvo, meanwhile, just launched the world's first car with external airbags to help protect pedestrians from serious injuries. But if you prefer bikes over cars, then you'll want to check out Bicycled Bikes, a unique set of bikes that are manufactured in Spain from upcycled car parts.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/24/P1-supercar-asteroid-lasers-mosquito-inoculators/

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Governors: Looming cuts threaten economic gains

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, center, seen with National Governors Association Chairman Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, left, and Vice Chairman Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, speaks during the opening news conference of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. The nation's governors say their states are threatened if the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts, known as the sequester, take effect March 1. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, center, seen with National Governors Association Chairman Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, left, and Vice Chairman Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, speaks during the opening news conference of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. The nation's governors say their states are threatened if the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts, known as the sequester, take effect March 1. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, left, leads fellow Democratic Governors Associations members along the driveway of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. From left are, Shumlin, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Vermont Gov. Maggie Hassan, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, center, accompanied by fellow members of the Democratic Governors Associations, speaks outside the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. From left are, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, Virgin Islands Gov. John De Jongh, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Hassan, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, center, accompanied by fellow members of the Democratic Governors Associations, looks up to the overcast sky, outside the White House in Washington, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. From left are, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, Virgin Island Gov. John de Jongh, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Hickenlooper, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, accompanied by other members of the Democratic Governors Associations, speaks outside the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Washington's protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession, exasperated governors said Saturday as they try to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts.

At the annual National Governors Association meeting, both Democrat and Republican chief executives expressed pessimism that both sides could find a way to avoid the massive, automatic spending cuts set to begin March 1, pointing to the impasse as another crisis between the White House and Congress that spooks local businesses from hiring and hampers their ability to construct state spending plans.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a former congressman, noted that the cuts ? known in Washington-speak as "the sequester" ? could lead to 19,000 workers laid off at Pearl Harbor, site of the surprise attack in 1941 that launched the United States into World War II.

"That will undermine our capacity for readiness at Pearl Harbor. If that doesn't symbolize for the nation ... what happens when we fail to meet our responsibilities congressionally, I don't know what does," he said.

The budget fight came as many states say they are on the cusp of an economic comeback from the financial upheaval in 2008 and 2009. States expect their general fund revenues this year to surpass the amounts collected before the Great Recession kicked in. An estimated $693 billion in revenues is expected for the 2013 budget year, nearly a 4 percent over the previous year.

At their weekend meetings, governors were focusing on ways to boost job development and grow their state economies, measures to restrict gun violence and implement the new health care law approved during Obama's first term.

Some Republican governors have blocked the use of Medicaid to expand health insurance coverage for millions of uninsured while others have joined Democrats in a wholesale expansion as the law allows. The Medicaid expansion aims to cover about half of the 30 million uninsured people expected to eventually gain coverage under the health care overhaul.

Yet for many governors, the budget-cut fight remains front-and-center and fuels a pervasive sense of frustration with Washington.

"My feeling is I can't help what's going on in Washington," Gov. Terry Branstad, R-Iowa, said in an interview Saturday. "I can't help the fact that there's no leadership here, and it's all politics as usual and gridlock. But I can do something about the way we do things in the state of Iowa."

Indeed, right now no issue carries the same level of urgency as the budget impasse.

Congressional leaders have indicated a willingness to let the cuts take effect and stay in place for weeks, if not much longer.

The cuts would trim $85 billion in domestic and defense spending, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of workers at the Transportation Department, Defense Department and elsewhere.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces.

The looming cuts were never supposed to happen. They were intended to be a draconian fallback intended to ensure a special deficit reduction committee would come up with $1 trillion or more in savings from benefit programs. It didn't.

"We should go back and remember that sequestration was originally designed by both the administration and Congress as something so odious, so repellent, that it would force both sides to a compromise. There can't be any question, this is something that nobody wants," said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat.

Obama has stepped up efforts to tell the public about the cuts' negative impact and pressure Republicans who oppose his approach of reducing deficits through a combination of targeted savings and tax increases. House Republicans have said reduced spending needs to be the focus and have rejected the president's fresh demand to include higher taxes as part of a compromise.

Governors said they are asking the Obama administration for more flexibility to deal with some of the potential cuts.

"We know that the cuts are coming, but we also don't want to suffer disproportionately," said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Association.

"We're just saying that as you identify federal cuts and savings, allow the states to be able to realize those savings, too," said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican and the association's vice chairwoman. "Give us the flexibility to be able to make the cuts where we think it will be the less harm to our citizens."

___

Follow Steve Peoples at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples and Ken Thomas at: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

___

Online:

National Governors Association: http://www.nga.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-23-Budget%20Battle-Governors/id-f7740b83797745bd886ed10816cb8992

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F-35 fleet grounded after engine crack found

FILE -This undated photo provided by Northrop Grumman Corp., shows a pre-production model of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon on Friday grounded its fleet of F-35 fighter jets after discovering a cracked engine blade in one plane. The problem was discovered during what the Pentagon called a routine inspection at Edwards Air Force Base, California, of an F-35A, the Air Force version of the sleek new plane. The Navy and the Marine Corps are buying other versions of the F-35, which is intended to replace older fighters like the Air Force F-16 and the Navy F/A-18. All versions , a total of 51 planes , were grounded Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 pending a more in-depth evaluation of the problem discovered at Edwards. None of the planes have been fielded for combat operations; all are undergoing testing.AP Photo/Northrop Grumman, File) no sales

FILE -This undated photo provided by Northrop Grumman Corp., shows a pre-production model of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon on Friday grounded its fleet of F-35 fighter jets after discovering a cracked engine blade in one plane. The problem was discovered during what the Pentagon called a routine inspection at Edwards Air Force Base, California, of an F-35A, the Air Force version of the sleek new plane. The Navy and the Marine Corps are buying other versions of the F-35, which is intended to replace older fighters like the Air Force F-16 and the Navy F/A-18. All versions , a total of 51 planes , were grounded Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 pending a more in-depth evaluation of the problem discovered at Edwards. None of the planes have been fielded for combat operations; all are undergoing testing.AP Photo/Northrop Grumman, File) no sales

(AP) ? The Pentagon on Friday grounded its fleet of F-35 fighter jets after discovering a cracked engine blade in one plane.

The problem was discovered during what the Pentagon called a routine inspection at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., of an F-35A, the Air Force version of the sleek new plane. The Navy and the Marine Corps are buying other versions of the F-35, which is intended to replace older fighters like the Air Force F-16 and the Navy F/A-18.

All versions ? a total of 51 planes ? were grounded Friday pending a more in-depth evaluation of the problem discovered at Edwards. None of the planes have been fielded for combat operations; all are undergoing testing.

In a brief written statement, the Pentagon said it is too early to know the full impact of the newly discovered problem.

The F-35 is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program at a total estimated cost of nearly $400 billion. The Pentagon envisions buying more than 2,400 F-35s, but some members of Congress are balking at the price tag.

Friday's suspension of flight operations will remain in effect until an investigation of the problem's root cause is determined.

The Pentagon said the engine in which the problem was discovered is being shipped to a Pratt & Whitney facility in Connecticut for more thorough evaluation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-22-US-Fighter%20Jet%20Grounded/id-9db01b29713e49f69a918fa1d16024c6

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Red Wing's mayor resigns in face of pressure over his frac sand industry role (Star Tribune)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/286942208?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

As furloughs loom, unions try to soften sequester blow for federal workers (Washington Post)

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Grief besets family of Pistorius' slain girlfriend

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, right, and his sister Aimee, left, are driven to a relatives home in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Pistorius was released on bail and will return to court June, 4, 2013 to face charge a charge of pre-meditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Nelius Rademan-FOTO24-Beeld) SOUTH AFRICA OUT NO SALES. NO ARCHIVE, ONLINE OUT MAGAZINES OUT INTERNET OUT TV OUT

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, right, and his sister Aimee, left, are driven to a relatives home in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Pistorius was released on bail and will return to court June, 4, 2013 to face charge a charge of pre-meditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Nelius Rademan-FOTO24-Beeld) SOUTH AFRICA OUT NO SALES. NO ARCHIVE, ONLINE OUT MAGAZINES OUT INTERNET OUT TV OUT

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius' uncle, Arnold Pistorius, speaks to journalists at the end of the bail hearing at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Oscar Pistorius was granted bail in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on Friday and will return to court June, 4, 2013 to face a charge of pre-meditated murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius' sister Aimee Pistorius looks on during his bail hearing at the magistrate court in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. Pistorius was granted bail in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on Friday. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

El atleta Oscar Pistorius aparece parado en el tribunal durante la audiencia de fianza por el asesinato de su novia Reeva Steenkamp el viernes, 22 de febrero de 2013, en Pretoria, Sud?frica. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Mike Steenkamp, the uncle of Reeva Steenkamp, centre, speaks to an unidentified man, holding a photo of Reeva, after her funeral in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius is charged with the premeditated murder of Steenkamp on Valentine's Day. The defense lawyer says it was an accidental shooting. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

(AP) ? Far from the courtroom drama that has gripped South Africa, the family of Oscar Pistorius' slain girlfriend has struggled with its own private deluge of grief, frustration and bewilderment.

The victim's relatives also harbor misgivings about efforts by the Olympian's family to reach out to them with condolences.

Pistorius, meanwhile, spent Saturday at his uncle's home in an affluent suburb of Pretoria, the South African capital, after a judge released him on bail following days of testimony that transfixed South Africa and much of the world. He was charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day, but the athlete says he killed her accidentally, opening fire after mistaking her for an intruder in his home.

"We are extremely thankful that Oscar is now home," his uncle, Arnold Pistorius, said in a statement that also acknowledged the law must run its course. "What happened has changed our lives irrevocably."

Mike Steenkamp, Reeva's uncle, told The Associated Press that the family of the double-amputee athlete initially did not send condolences or try to contact the bereaved parents, but had since sought to reach out in what he described as a poorly timed way. After Pistorius was released on bail in what amounted to a victory for the defense, Arnold Pistorius said the athlete's family was relieved but also in mourning "with the family" of Reeva Steenkamp.

"Everybody wants to jump up with joy," Mike Steenkamp said, speculating on the mood of Pistorius' family after the judge's decision. "I think it was just done in the wrong context, completely."

A South African newspaper, the Afrikaans-language Beeld, quoted the mother of Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, law school graduate and participant in a television reality show, as saying the family had received a bouquet of flowers and a card from the Pistorius family.

"Yes, but what does it mean? Nothing," June Steenkamp said, according to the Saturday edition of Beeld. She also said Pistorius' family, including sister Aimee, a somber presence on the bench behind the Olympian during his court hearings in the past week, must be "devastated" and had done nothing wrong.

"They are not to blame," June Steenkamp said. According to Beeld, she said she had hoped to plan a wedding for her daughter one day.

In an affidavit, 26-year-old Oscar Pistorius said he was "absolutely mortified" by the death of "my beloved Reeva," and he frequently sobbed in court during the several days during which his bail application was considered. However, prosecutor Gerrie Nel, suggested in a scathing criticism that Pistorius was actually distraught because his vaunted career was now in peril and he was in grave trouble with the law.

"It doesn't matter how much money he has and how good his legal team is, he will have to live with his conscience if he allows his legal team to lie for him," Barry Steenkamp, Reeva's father, told Beeld .

"But if he is telling the truth, then perhaps I can forgive him one day," the father said. "If it didn't happen the way he said it did, he must suffer, and he will suffer ... only he knows."

Barry Steenkamp suffered "heavy trauma" at the loss of his daughter and his remarks to the newspaper partly reflect how he is working through it, said his brother, Mike Steenkamp.

Steenkamp was cremated in a funeral ceremony on Feb. 19 in her family's hometown of Port Elizabeth on South Africa's southern coast. Mike Steenkamp delivered a statement about the family's grief to television cameras, at one point breaking down in tears.

The three-story house where Pistorius is staying with his aunt and uncle lies on a hill with a view of Pretoria. It has a large swimming pool and an immaculate garden.

Pistorius was born without fibula bones due to a congenital defect and had his legs amputated at 11 months. He has run on carbon-fiber blades and was originally banned from competing against able-bodied peers because many argued that his blades gave him an unfair advantage. He was later cleared to compete. He is multiple Paralympic medalist, but he failed to win a medal at the London Olympics, where he ran in the 400 meters and on South Africa's 4x400 relay team.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-23-Pistorius-Shooting/id-77a2c546ba9a46baa2e62fbb099b132f

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